Brazil's Roman Catholics shrink as secular rise

In this photo taken Sept. 5, 2011, monks attend a Mass at the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Cathedral in Sao Paulo, Brazil. At the start of the last decade, millions of Brazilian Catholics joined flashy Pentecostal congregations expanding in the world's biggest Catholic country. Now, a new study by Brazil's top research institute finds the country's Catholics are still leaving the church and at a higher rate than ever, but many younger parishioners are simply becoming nonreligious. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
— AP

In this photo taken Sept. 5, 2011, monks attend a Mass at the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Cathedral in Sao Paulo, Brazil. At the start of the last decade, millions of Brazilian Catholics joined flashy Pentecostal congregations expanding in the world's biggest Catholic country. Now, a new study by Brazil's top research institute finds the country's Catholics are still leaving the church and at a higher rate than ever, but many younger parishioners are simply becoming nonreligious. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
/ AP

"As the economy has improved, people have more access to cinema, theater, to just take a trip," said Silvia Fernandes, a sociologist at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro who focuses on those who switch religions. "So we're seeing that people no longer need to go to church for social reasons if they have these other options."

Altemeyer said the ability of the previously impoverished to acquire goods like TVs and computers means even more distraction.

"The improvement of people's life conditions is adding to this phenomenon of secularization and the rejection of religious institutions," Altemeyer said.

Marcelo Neri, the author of the study, also said he thinks the Catholic decline was sparked by a "female revolution."

The foundation study discovered that Catholic women, instead of giving up entirely on religion, are largely going to traditional Protestant denominations such as the Presbyterians or Methodists, which are viewed by many as less patriarchal.

Experts say the changes have accelerated as many women turn away from the Vatican's prohibitive views on contraception and abortion, which remains illegal in nearly all cases in Brazil.

"The Catholic Church is literally losing its future, and the loss of women and young people is the most important driver of the fall," Neri said.

The decline marks a massive change from just 30 years ago, when nearly 90 percent of Brazilians called themselves Catholic, according to census figures.

Mexico is poised to take Brazil's place as the world's top Catholic nation, although the church is also losing members there. According to Mexico's census, 84 percent of the population was Catholic in 2010, with the number dropping at a rate less than half of that in Brazil.

An explosion of Pentecostal churches, many of them founded by U.S. evangelicals, triggered the losses in Brazil in the 1990s, with their portion doubling to hit more than 12 percent of the country's population. About half of Brazilian Pentecostals are estimated to have come from the Catholic Church.

As the country's economy suffered from hyperinflation and other woes, Pentecostal churches aggressively recruited in the slums and poor outskirts of Brazil's cities, offering nuts-and-bolts self-improvement advice as well as ministry.

Since 2003, however, the Pentecostal growth has barely ticked up, from 12.5 percent to 12.8 percent of the population, the study found. Yet the Catholic Church has continued to lose parishioners.

Church leaders have pulled out all the stops to reverse the trend, with little success so far. Repeated requests for comment from the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops went unanswered.

Brazil was the first nation outside of Europe that Pope Benedict XVI visited, during a five-day tour in 2007 largely aimed at stopping losses in Latin America. During the trip, the pope canonized Brazil's first native-born saint.

Pope Benedict also announced in August during the church's World Youth Day, which drew 1.5 million people to Spain, that the next version of the summit would be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. The pope is expected to attend.

For lifelong Catholic Leila Ribeiro, the church's misfortunes mark a break from generations of church tradition.

The 32-year-old was leaving a recent, half-empty Sunday Mass in Sao Paulo's cavernous Metropolitan Cathedral, where she was one of the few younger people attending. All around her, elderly women chatted and caught up.

"I was brought up with the notion that religion is passed from mother to child, but I fear for what will happen to the church in his generation," she said, looking toward her son. "If the Catholic faith isn't spread within the family, how will it grow?"

---

Associated Press writer Olga Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed to this report.